With ongoing advancements in video technology, businesses are constantly looking for new and innovative methods to promote their brand and encourage interaction and engagement from prospective customers. One innovative video technology which is becoming increasingly popular is producing a virtual 360 tour.
A virtual 360 tour can be defined as a simulation of a specific location that is composed of a sequence of still images or videos. These images and videos can then be viewed by a user and allow the opportunity to interact and explore the environment. Due to the fact that these tours incorporate additional multimedia elements such as text, music, videos, animations, augmented reality, PDFs and narration, which can help to inspire, educate and enhance the overall user experience.
Due to the highly immersive experience, virtual 360 tours can help to spark interest from stakeholders and encourage maximum engagement. As a result, these tours are now being widely produced and utilised by businesses operating within a diverse range of industries including real estate, hospitality, events and tourism.
Now that we have established what virtual tours are and why they are useful, we will explore the benefits of 360 virtual tours. Moreover, we will explain 8 different reasons why your business should consider creating an immersive virtual experience.
1. Immersive & Interactive User Experience
One of the biggest benefits of virtual 360 tours is that these are an incredibly engaging experience, which requires users to navigate and interact within the virtual environment.
Due to the high levels of user interaction and engagement, we believe that virtual tours are an effective way to promote your brand, products and services whilst also creating a memorable user experience.
Furthermore, using an augmented reality headset can create a truly immersive user experience allowing individuals to experience the virtual environment from their perspective.
To demonstrate how immersive and interactive 360 tours can be, we have created a virtual tour of the Eon Visual Media office below.
2. A Closer Look!
Another benefit of virtual 360 tours is that these are a great way for stakeholders to explore products, services and locations in high levels of detail.
By capturing high-quality images and video, virtual tours can allow users to observe a product or location in great detail from a first-person perspective.
We can see an example of this in the video below, where we collaborated with TransPennine Express to help them showcase their brand-new train carriages.
3. Access All Areas!
Another benefit of virtual 360 tours, is that once these are produced, your location and services can be accessed and viewed by users 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
Furthermore, they enable allow businesses to showcase areas which would are off-limits to the public, or difficult to access for those with mobility issues. For example, a heritage site may want to produce a virtual 360 tour which would allow users the opportunity to access and view a fragile exhibit that would ordinarily be off-limits or inaccessible to the public.
With ongoing concerns surrounding the Coronavirus and social distancing, many businesses may want to produce a virtual tour that allows users to continue to view and access their location and services from the safety of their own homes.
Another example of this can be seen below, where we produced a virtual 360 tour for Nottingham Forest football club, allowing fans to have an all-access experience following the team out onto the pitch on match-day.
4. An Informative Experience
As well as providing users with a view and tour of a specific location, virtual 360 tours can also incorporate additional multimedia elements such as text, music, videos, animations, augmented reality, PDFs and narration. By incorporating additional visual elements, this can help to enhance the overall user experience.
For example, museums can use virtual 360 tours to allow users to view their exhibits whilst also incorporating supporting text and visual media to educate the users further and enhance the overall experience.
A great example of this can be seen here, where users can take a virtual tour inside Westminster Abbey and view historical facts about the location.
5. Innovative Marketing Content
Another benefit of virtual 360 tours is that these can also be an effective marketing tool for promoting your brand, products and services.
Due to the highly immersive and interactive user experience, virtual tours are an ideal solution for businesses that are aiming to create a highly interactive and engaging marketing experience for stakeholders.
Furthermore, video tours can help to portray your brand as a contemporary and modern business utilising innovative visual technology.
6. Greater Customer Reach
Virtual 360 tours can also help businesses to showcase their premises to a much larger audience.
As most virtual 360 tours are published online, this can allow businesses to expose their products, services and premises to a global and online audience. For example, a tourist attraction may want to produce a tour which helps to promote their destination and attractions and potentially inspire new tourists to visit their destination.
A great example of this can be seen in this video, where viewers can explore the Magic Kingdom theme park at Disney World Orlando.
7. Save Time & Money!
Another benefit of virtual 360 tours, is that these are an efficient alternative to hosting a tour in person.
For many years, the only feasible way for a business to provide a tour of a location was to have a member of staff host and navigate a group around their premises and provide a detailed explanation of the surroundings.
However, producing a virtual 360 tour will allow visitors unlimited access to your location without hiring a specific tour guide.
8. Safety First!
A big concern for all businesses is ensuring the safety and wellbeing of on-site visitors.
With this, many businesses cannot provide on-site tours due to concerns of visitors having up-close access to large machinery and risking the contamination of products.
However, by creating a virtual 360 tour, a business can produce an interactive experience that allows users to explore and access these areas with no risk of health and safety and contamination.
For example, check out our virtual 360 tours below, which we produced for March Foods allowing users to get up close to the food manufacturing process.
Summary
As you can see, there are many different features, applications and benefits to using virtual 360 tours for your business.
At Eon Visual Media, we are incredibly passionate about creating visually stunning and engaging content which can help your business stand out from the competition.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business, please contact us here! Or alternatively, drop us an email!
